


The Littlest Raider

by Uber_name



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout - Fandom, Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I don't know what else to put here, I'll tag more stuff later, M/M, No Spoilers, Robodad Nick Valentine, Tumblr Prompt, because why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 03:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5274773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uber_name/pseuds/Uber_name
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Where are all the children in this game? Do you expect me to believe that all those raiders aren’t getting it on in the background? That they’ve got condoms hidden away? I want raider child/SS interaction. Bonus for angst induced adoption.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Littlest Raider

**Author's Note:**

> (Edited)Prompt: Where are all the children in this game? Do you expect me to believe that all those raiders aren’t getting it on in the background? That they’ve got condoms hidden away? I want raider child/SS interaction. Bonus for angst induced adoption, (deleted extra bonus because of endgame spoilers).
> 
> No major main quest spoilers, some future minor companion/side quest spoilers. Feel free to shout at me if I accidentally reveal something – I’ll try to fix it. Also sorry

Madeline was afraid of a lot of things; ghouls, bloodbugs, radstorms, and those clappy-animal alarms to name a few. She was wary of supermutants too, but they left the compound well enough alone – for which she was grateful. The adults also tended to leave them be... generally. Sometimes the drunk ones tried to get in, and the chemmed up ones usually tried to shoot everyone. But it’d been… a lot? Madeline etched another chalk line, and stepped back to take it in. There were many white tallies littering the Safe-Wall, so it had been a while since anyone got hurt because of the outside.    
  
She gingerly set the chalk down so as not to crack it and dusted her hands together, then sneezed repeatedly because of the floating powder. Madeline was still sniffling when she stepped out onto the rickety balcony that sat two stories up the side of a wooden house.   
“’Kay, so,” She shouted down to the waiting congregation of kids staring up at her while she wiped her nose on her sleeve. “It’s been a lot of days since someone got in-”  
“How many’s that?” One of them interrupted.  
Madeline huffed and scowled. “More than a hundred;” she replied. “The Safe-Wall’s almost white.”   
There was a chatter of approval from below.   
“What about Happies?” A different voice called. “How many lines’re on the Happy-Wall?”  
  
Madeline held in the urge to grimace on put on her best big-girl voice; the voice she used to persuade drunks to get lost, and citizens to calm down. “Well, Happy-Wall aint really a good way to measure how okay we are.” She said diplomatically. “’Cuz Roger pinched his finger in the gate yesterday so’s I had to wipe the tallies away.”  
“Still counts.” Someone muttered sullenly. “We’re at zero again.”  
The discontented mumbling was more contagious than the pleased muttering from before.  
“Well we aint dead yet Murray!” Madeline leaned over the bannister and shouted at the pessimistic kid below. “It was just his pinky anyways. We aint gonna die of no pinkie.”   
“It hurt Maddie!” Roger shouted from somewhere in the back. “I’m not happy!”  
  
Madeline balled her fist and rubbed irritably at her right eye. She’d stuck her finger in there the other day to get rid of an eyelash – and now it was swollen and red. “Yeah,” she conceded, “but you aint all of us neither. I think we need’ta work on how we measure happy. Cuz if we always went to zero just cuz we stubbed our toes, we gonna grow up meaner’n a psycho with no psycho.”  
Again, the children mumbled, this time because they were once again reminded why Madeline was the leader.   
“Maybe just take one off?” Someone ventured.  
“We gots to add points too.” Madeline reminded them, still worrying her eye.   
“I found a cap in my shoe yesterday?”  
“I killt a ghoulie!”  
“Max an’ me found two cars in a trash outside!”  
“We aint been hit for a hundred days!” Madeline cheered.  
“That’s worth seven happies!”  
“More like a hundred, dummy.”  
  
“Okay, okay,” Madeline waved the crowd down from their high, before things turned violent. “I’ll put some lines on the Happy-Wall; but that aint why I called all’a’yall out here.”  
The small faces peered expectantly up at her from below.   
“We runnin’ outta food again - and I aint talking ‘bout apples, mash, n’ cram. We’re all gonna turn into ghouls if we keep eatin’ that yuck.”  
There was a groan amongst the citizens of Boss Town. “The big’uns don’t like when we eat the dogs,” more than one complained.   
Madeline shrugged the outcries off with a wave of her hand. “We jus’ takin’ two.”   
“Noooooooo-”  
“I’m leavin in the mornin’ with Team Lurk, kay?” She shouted, ignoring the dissent.   
The eight or so members of Team Lurk groaned.   
“So get some sleeps in. Everyone else here…” Madeline saluted them, “You gonna hold down the fort. Jericho’s boss until I get back.”  
  
There were a few whoops as Jericho was slapped on the back while he grinned sheepishly and made his way back to his guard post. Madeline, meanwhile, turned heel and disappeared back into Boss Hall to get ready for the mornings raid. She got on her hands and knees to drag out the two chem boxes from under her bed that were filled with various knickknacks that they left for the supermutants as a peace offering. She usually left it in the spot where the dogs died, and stayed behind to make sure they got it as well. The last thing she needed was for a bunch of people four times her size to hold grudge against her – or her town. She also partially stayed behind so that she could run after her team to warn them if a supermutant got too angry; carrying those huge dogs really slowed them down.  
  
She placed a roll of leather, two molerat teeth, and a handful of .38 rounds in each box amongst the rest of the goodies. Madeline always made sure to arrange the contents to make it look like the box was overflowing; gifts seemed more exciting when they spilled over the top, even if all you got were subway tokens and a purple vase. She liked her purple vase. She hid things in it. She didn’t think that the supermutants would have use for a vase though, so she didn’t bother trying to give one to them.   
  
_Jus’ eleven more hours,_ she thought. The best time to leave the compound was a bit before the sun rose in the morning; the only thing they had to fight off then were disturbed ghouls and the odd molerat that managed to sneak up on them. Raiders and gunners were usually hungover or sleeping, and the snipers didn’t usually pick them off unless a team member aimed a gun at them first. Some did ‘practice their aim’ at Madeline’s citizens – which was why they had a route and targets set up ahead of time. There was no reason that this run would be any different than the other successful runs they’d had. But, like any good leader should, she still stayed up and pored anxiously over the crude maps they’d drawn until it was time to wake up her team and move out.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The halfway pointed marked the beginning of where things turned ugly. It was close to one of the gunners patrol points, so naturally there were searchlights and turrets pointing every which way. Madeline waited patiently for one of the floodlights to swing slowly back towards the left before motioning for her team to scamper to the right. She followed quickly after, with the pool of white nipping at her heels as she skidded around a corner on their right again. _Phew_. That one was close. The eight members of Team Lurk were already peering left and right down the alley they’d just entered, making sure that their next turn was safe.  
“Clear,” the two sides whispered in unison.   
With that, Madison took point again and snuck along the wall to the left. If she listened close enough, she could hear the telltale snorting of the giant dogs, and the not so subtle grunt of a supermutant.   
  
“We getting too close to Goodneighbor,” Madeline murmured, looking down at her map. “Let’s go two roads down first.”  
“There’sa ambush point ‘tween those two buildings,” A Lurker member said from over her shoulder, pointing at two squares an inch above Madeline’s finger.   
“We aint goin’ under it,” Madeline explained. “We’ll take a right up this road and climb the stairs to the roof there.”  
“Do I gotta snipe?” One of them asked.   
“Yeah,” Madeline said. “Me n’ Katie’ll wait at the bottom n’ lead em off if they come sniffing.”  
“I should run,” Another member piped up. “M’ faster than Katie.”  
“Are not!” Katie hissed.  
“Are too!”  
“Are NOT!”  
“Shut up, this is important!” Madeline barked at the two bickering children.  
“S-sorry.”  
“Katie.” Madeline said with finality. “You’re runnin’. You head left and I’ll go right. Or straight. Just run where they don’t come from, ‘kay?”  
Katie nodded, though she was visibly blanching in fear under the moonlight.   
“Everyone else ‘sides Sniper take up a spot n’ shoot; I’ll put the presents down once you guys get the dogs.”  
  
With that clear plan in mind, the group of nine set out for their new destination two blocks down. It was relatively easy going, besides a tumbling rock giving a few of them a heart attack for a moment. When they reached the scaffolding in question, Sniper and two other members scampered up the side, while the rest took up positions in a jagged semi-circle. Katie and Madeline stood at the base of the scaffolding, half out in the open to draw the dog’s attention and get a good head start if they needed to run, and half out of the way to avoid being bitten. Now all they had to do was wait.  
  
The town of Boss had figured out long ago that its citizens were not capable of actively hunting down their prey – they had to wait for it to come to them before they could attack. That being said, they were sufficiently proficient in ambushing, setting traps, sniping, and generally shooting from the hip. No one even bothered trying to pick up a sledgehammer, and the ones that could were obviously just a little too big to live in Boss Town.   
  
“Should’a brought a snack.” Madeline heard Sniper mumble from above a little while later, followed by two hums in agreement. She didn’t bother shushing them, as it would just make more noise. It was true though, they could potentially be here until the sun peeked over the top of the shorter buildings. Some Fancy Lads wouldn’t hurt. And it was getting brighter. _Where are they?_  
  
Madeline wasn’t sure if it was the cry of rage that frightened her more, or the sudden explosion of a building to her right.   
“RUN!” She screamed - and in hindsight, she should have been more specific. The three kids on the scaffold were safe vaulting over the rooftops, but the six of them on the ground scattered in every which direction like a dropped box of mentats. All away from the exploding building – thankfully – but some disappeared down Ambush Alley and Madeline was not about to lose her citizens. She dug a heel down and sprinted after the two going down the alley, but was stopped short as they shot back out and grabbed her by the arms screaming ‘Go!’  
  
That was when she saw it; a giant metal suit just like the ones that plonked along and jumped out of those flying metal buildings. He had an actual missile launcher on his shoulder and a ghoul at his back, and seemed neither fazed nor concerned with either. The angry screaming – which was not a supermutant as she had first assumed – was coming from the suits head, and it howled again as another missile launched itself at the supermutant across the road. She took all this in like she’d taken an extra huff of jet before panicking like any normal human should and making a break for it.   
  
“Faster!” She called, overtaking her teammates and sprinting down the nearest alley. She dove behind a dumpster, and was pleased to see that the other three had remembered that this was a safe point.  
“Not a raider!” Katie said between gasps as she and another caught up and huddled behind the hunk of metal and refuse.   
“Where’s Sniper?” Madeline asked, just as breathy.  
“Home?” One hazarded a guess.   
Madeline licked at the back of her throat and tasted blood. She wasn’t sure if she was incredibly dehydrated or she’d bitten her tongue or something, but she wasn’t about to waste good saliva and spit to find out. “Shoot.” She muttered.  
The fighting had died down at least, and upon Katie’s request a few moments later, they snuck back out and peered down the road they’d come from.   
“The only safe way back is the way we came.” Madeline moaned. “There’s no way we’ll make it through Combat Zone during the day.” Since no one behind her offered their opinion on whether they should make a break for it now or later, Madeline decided for them, and took a tentative step forward. Carefully, the group of six edged along the walls back towards the intersection they’d just run from.     
  
“Is it still there?” Someone asked.   
Madeline peered through the dusty haze, and could just make out the metal man in the distance. It wasn’t moving though, and the ghoul must’ve been shot dead because he wasn’t there either.   
“I think it’s sleeping,” she whispered back.   
“Go closer.” Katie said excitedly, pressing herself into Madeline’s back.  
“Shove off!” Madeline yelped, panicking for the second at the feeling of something getting way too close to her blind spot.  
“Sorry.” Katie mumbled.   
Madeline did move forward though; probably too quickly given the situation being ripe for potential danger. But she squared her shoulders, and aimed the barrel of her shotgun at the metal man’s head. “Shoot if it moves.” She instructed the followers behind her.  
“I don’t wanna. Maddie, stop, let’s just go home,” someone from the back of the line whimpered.  
  
The subsequent resounding cracks of her gun made the group behind Madeline cry out in fear and tear down the road back towards Boss Town. The metal helmet, however, toppled over with an unsatisfying thud at the monsters feet. _Stupid_ , Madeline chided mentally, _it’s empty_. She shoved her gun back into its holster and strolled up to the armor and its decapitated head. _Mine_. She decided, picking up the helmet. It was way heavier than necessary, but she could easily carry it and get one of the big kids to pawn it to a less sleazy vendor. She could _just_ get her hands to clasp on the other side of its head if she held it tight to her chest.   
It didn’t solve her food problem, though.  
  
In a cruel twist of fate, there were two dead dogs at the end of the building, along with an equally dead supermutant. Her presents remained untouched as well. _Ugh! Lurkers are **so** grounded for leaving me when I get back!_   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Nate was zoned out – or as zoned out as someone hopped up on psycho could be – as he tore a wide swath of murder and mayhem through the common. All Hancock could do was follow behind his friend and stab a stimpak into his shoulder every so often to keep him going, and hope a settler didn’t get caught up in the crossfire. Not that they were headed into places with moderately decent people – Psycho Nate seemed content with blowing holes in raiders, supermutants, and gunners for the most part.   
  
Nate had been unstable the last couple of days following what could be put mildly as a ‘series of unfortunate events’. Hancock had suggested a pick-me-up. This was not a pick-me-up. The unintelligible gargling alternated between animalistic roars, swears, ‘Shauns’, and victorious whoops were anything but the tranquility Hancock had been aiming for when he suggested chems. To make matters worse, they’d come across a suit of power armor and _of course_ Nate all but throws himself into it to kick his bloodlust into maximum overdrive. Hancock couldn’t find a crevice to shove the stimpaks in anymore, and his friend clearly didn’t give two shits about whether or not his head exploded.   
  
That was the reason why thirty minutes into the armor killing spree Hancock made an executive decision to pull out the fusion core; that and the fact that a couple of kids were scampering around a soon to be battleground. The sole survivor had already launched three missiles at a very dead supermutant by the time Hancock managed to pry the core out, and his friend stumbled blearily backwards into the ghouls waiting arms.   
“Shaun?” he asked woozily.  
“Sorry.” Hancock muttered, trying to find his balance.  
Nate shoved himself upward, head cocked to the side and staring intently at some point off in the distance. “There.” He muttered hoarsely. “Saw him.” His vision swam for a moment. “Saw him!” he insisted again.  
“Alright brother, alright, we’ll get him.” Hancock placated while digging in his breast pocket for a stimpak or med-x.   
“Hancock,” Nate whined as the med-x took effect and he slipped somewhere between docility and unconsciousness.   
“I know,” Hancock murmured again, rubbing the pinprick that the needle had just left in Nates skin.  
“Did see him,” came the sleepily insistent reply.  
  
Hancock hefted the dozy human partially onto his back and half carried, half dragged him in Goodneighbor’s general direction. Truth be told, this crusade of Nate’s had gone better than expected, and Hancock didn’t have it in him to be upset over Nate’s recent antics. It was a sort of bone-tiredness that Hancock had seen in a lot of ghouls who lived just a bit too long – and it looked as though this rule applied to frozen smoothskins as well. Or… people who knew real highs before being knocked down way too low. Nope. Hancock couldn’t be mad. But he sure as hell was furious about the lack of self-preservation.


End file.
